Let it grow, let it grow, let it grow...

I finally have some stuff to show you.  Before you get all excited, I must admit that it isn't much.

I hope to have more for you at the end of this long weekend.  I plan to spend most of my time out-of-doors, as this is our forecast:

I assume that even if you don't understand Celsius, you can appreciate that this is very unusually warm weather (and I also assume that you can appreciate how rarely we see the sun, in this seaside corner of the world).  So, you can probably understand why I am so excited right now that I am wiggling in my chair...

I am going to get down and dirty this weekend, in that I will be crawling around on the ground and there will undoubtedly be mud involved.  My garden is a mess and though I could never have imagined it, things are already growing.  It's a MIRACLE, friends!

So, without further ado, here is what I have to show you:

{Scrapbookers, avert your eyes.  The complete lack of attention to detail in the following photos will horrify you and possibly give you nightmares.  The rest of you may look, but this shall be proof that I have never gotten into scrapbooking and that it is probably best that I keep it that way.}

I have a page (or a few pages, in some cases) for each *type* of garden area in the yard.  We have an acre and there are all sorts of different little ecosystems that I would like to landscape.  The spring bulbs are going to get planted in the woodsy portion at the front end of the property and I want them to naturalize, so I don't have to think about them.

The meadowy-ornamental-grass-and-coneflower-and-gaillarda garden is going right next to/over the septic field (sexy, huh?), where the best earth is (gee, I wonder why).

We already have a wetland-type garden started in our swale and it seems to be thriving, so I'm going to add to it.

We are going to build some raised garden beds because we have only crappy earth next to the house and I'm tired of fighting with it.  The herbs (and other edibles), sweet peas, and small perennials are going in those.  I already have approximately 100,000,000 hostas that I either received for free or paid a pittance for, so I'm going to put those in raised beds at the front of the house.  My daylilies will stay in their existing spots, as they seem happy and the earth there is more-or-less ok.

This is my garden plan (I say "my" plan, because my hubbie couldn't care less and just goes along with anything I say anyway):

I can't WAIT to get started, friends.

Now, before you ask me about what my favourite references are for gardening, I'm going to tell you:

I'm not sure.

I mostly hound my friend Ruth for advice (you'll be meeting her and her garden for real in the next few months...I shall spare no expense to get you the goods on how she does things over at her place).  I also have a friend (former employer) who is a wonderful landscape architect and who is happy to answer my incredibly redundant and ridiculous questions, over and over again.  My grandmother loves to garden and we gossip about plants whenever we talk on the phone (she sends me garden porn on a regular basis - God bless the internet and e-mail).  I read Canadian Gardening voraciously (thanks to aforementioned grandmother, I receive a subscription as a birthday gift, every year...I think she does it so she has someone to gossip about gardening with).  I do a lot of snooping around on the internet.  I don't really have a gardening book collection to speak of.  I have one really gorgeous guide on ornamental grasses (buy it here, if you'd like) and a french-language book on vegetable gardening.  I don't refer to either one for actual gardening, though (just to look at the pretty pictures *I'mficklecoughcough*).  I learned about gardening from my mom (surprise!) and it was just something we always did.  I'll admit, my gardening is really just one long exercise in trial-and-error.

Lots and lots of error.  And trial.  Lots of that.

I will leave you on that note with a promise to post some nice photos a little later this weekend.  This photo is from a little series I took of my kitchen window, earlier this week (in anticipation of beach-walking-weather):

PS: I haven't touched my sweater in a week.  It's a sad state of affairs, people.  I warned you that gardening was going to turn my brain to mush, right?  Well, I hope you like mush.